/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General

Mapmaking edition.

Right lads I don't usually make the thread so sorry if I mess it up, version II. Don't know where the old OP went.


/wbg/ discord:
discord.gg/ArcSegv

On designing cultures:
frathwiki.com/Dr._Zahir's_Ethnographical_Questionnaire

Mapmaking tutorials:
cartographersguild.com/forumdisplay.php?f=48
www.inkarnate.com

Random Magic Resources/Possible Inspiration:
darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/magic/antiscience.html
buddhas-online.com/mudras.html
sacred-texts.com/index.htm
mega.nz/#F!AE5yjIqB!y7Vdxdb5pbNsi2O3zyq9KQ

Conlanging:
zompist.com/resources/

Sci-fi related links:
futurewarstories.blogspot.ca/
projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/
military-sf.com/

Fantasy world tools:
fantasynamegenerators.com/
donjon.bin.sh/

Historical diaries:
eyewitnesstohistory.com/index.html

A collection of worldbuilding resources:
kennethjorgensen.com/worldbuilding/resources

List of books for historians:
reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/books/

Compilation of medieval bestiaries:
bestiary.ca/

Middle ages worldbuilding tools:
www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm
qzil.com/kingdom/
lucidphoenix.com/dnd/demo/kingdom.asp
mathemagician.net/Town.html

Don't know how to come up with good map questions so maybe this is a bad theme.
> Do you hand draw your maps, or use a tool like inkarnate?
> Are your maps realistic or are they whimsical?
> Do you even use maps?
> Are your maps for reference or do you use them in games (Like Urealms?)

Hard Mode:
>I don't know, share your map or something.

Other urls found in this thread:

docs.google.com/document/d/13NSIFm0w56oTbdG2C_D07Fn0hnilX0oleTacNyEGk10/edit?usp=sharing
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

Sharing my map or something.

everday is an interesting name. Why is it called that?

Also the non-englishy ones? Is it multiple cultures of human or multiple races or both?

The city is built around a giant pillar of crystallized fire. The city is constantly bathed its light.

Multiple races. Imperius Urbum and the surrounding cities are Elven, everything south of Maadi is the Sobki, the cities around Everday are remnants of the old human empire and part of the new one, Imash is a Dwarven trading city, and the two in the southern sea are Akkraok strongholds established by their advance from the east.

The Sobki are crocodilemen, the Akkraok are flightless birdmen, and the dragon symbols are actual dragons. Dragons in my setting are unique and godlike, with dragon-cult tribes surrounding their lairs.

And yeah, that's a bit of a shit description of things. Trying to keep it light without dumping everything for context.

What are some things to keep in mind when running a world whose highest form of government is the city-state?

Does vassalage exist as a concept? That will be a big game changer.

Give us more information about the world. Having sci-fi levels of tech vs. bronze age would change things.

Local patriotism, city-specific cults and gods, armies consisting of citizens.

But how would this differ from larger governments? Patriotism, national gods, and the draft are pretty similar to the ideas you listed.

Technologically it's more bronze age except there is also weird ancient tech which is sometimes practically considered magic.

Not that guy, but can city-states be viable against feudalism-style monarchies without unreasonable advantages?

Considering that there were a number of city states that existed on the Italian peninsula in the middle ages, I'm going to say yes.

Remember that trade allows for people to interact with other city states from far away, but that for the most part the scope of the world is pretty small. Sparta and Athens, the two super powers of classical Greece, were less than 100 miles apart. Wars are also going to be smaller in scale, with most battles having no more than about 20,000 troops fighting each other.

>Patriotism
LOCAL
>national gods
Not really national gods, greek or sumerian city-states had their city-specific gods, which were still worshipped in other cities. But the main cult was at their own cities.
>and the draft
Compared to feudal nations? The draft we know is a pretty modern thing, feudal societies usually had their warrior-caste plus some professional free guys, that often formed the middle-class. Mercenaries became more important as we reached the renaissance and beyond. Peasant levies are mostly a myth. City-states on the other hand often semi-professional citizen-"warriors" or in case of italian city-states, as some other user pointed out, armies of mercenaries, if they ahd the money and such armies were available.

> Do you hand draw your maps, or use a tool like inkarnate?
Photoshop, tut's generally available around here. I've been considering saying fuck it and just drawing one, but I'd need a new tablet because honestly I can't be assed to do it traditionally.
> Are your maps realistic or are they whimsical?
Realistic, generally a tool for me, and a few hours of relaxation in their making.
> Do you even use maps?
No
> Are your maps for reference or do you use them in games (Like Urealms?)
I like to drop the map on the players, and update it with markers as a campaign goes on. Just as a neat little extra. Something to go "neat" at, and drudge up some memories.

So a few months ago on /wbg/ there was talk of supertall montains, which really fired my imagination.

I've since learned that for several factors mean that you could only squeeze a few hundred meters more out of Everest before you hit the absolute max a mountain can go with Earth-like conditions and that Everest is already freakishly tall for our planet.

However this is /wbg/. Assuming the geology faeries do their magic, what would the effects be of a supertall mountain? Let's start things off with Mt.Huge somewhere in the mid or upper stratosphere between 20-40km high. I'm particularly interested in the weather, not just around the peaks but across the continent it sits on.

Alright I've just done a bit of a quickie to ask for advice. Think of this as a first draft map.

My goal is to map out a typical fantasy kingdom which would serve as a campaign location. Players would be traveling to and from the various villages and towns on the journeys the main roads being rather important.

It look alright?

Alright, I've got a shit-ton of people and places to name in a setting.

Does anyone have a good set of guidelines for creating believable (or a least reasonably memorable, not letter-salad jumbles) names with out just wholesale lifting of them from some place? Partial lifting could work I guess. And I'd like to avoid all biblical-derived names in particular when it comes to people.

Looks comfy, if this is of any help. Maybe the south is a bit sparse, is there any civilization?

What caused that region to have such a small scale of government?

In the case of Greece, it was partially because of terrain that did not permit easy travel between cities.

You could also go for a more "asspull" reason, such as a strong tendency for exclusion of outsiders due to cultural or religious belief. Or they all originated from wildly different culture groups, so groups could not assimilate with each other in a reasonable time, or they did not have any desire to.

How do you come up with names for your races? I always draw a blank when it comes to naming races and ethnicities in that race. Latin naming just seems too obvious.

Steal the names from something vaguely similar from mythology. I'm personally passive-aggressively making monsters in the vein of minotaurs and pegasus, based on one particular creature. Sleipnirs and shit.

Guess that works as well, but would it work for subraces?

>Do you hand draw your maps, or use a tool like inkarnate?
Both, but I usually hand draw because Inkarnate is too limiting for my taste.
>Are your maps realistic or are they whimsical?
They're basic because I'm shit at drawing, so neither?
>Do you even use maps?
All the time, the problem is that I keep redrawing them to the point that the landmass sizes change each time I do so.
> Are your maps for reference or do you use them in games (Like Urealms?)
Reference, no one is likely to give a shit about my setting anyway.
>I don't know, share your map or something.
Pic related, essentially a rough draft of the settings not! West Africa.

Without a centralized organization to finance them, roads between cities will be relatively rare and largely of the "trail kept clear only because people keep trampling the flora" variety. Those that are paved or maintained will likely be status symbols kept up by merchants, who are likely to form a somewhat wealthy caste viewed with suspicion due to their relative monopoly on traveling.

Please rate and don't hate my world and map

>docs.google.com/document/d/13NSIFm0w56oTbdG2C_D07Fn0hnilX0oleTacNyEGk10/edit?usp=sharing

In case you're still here:

Places are named after the following
>geographic features
>founding person/famous hero
>gods
>cultural reason

Everywhere is really just John's Creek, Hill Fort, Hercules, or Holy City, just in the native tongue of whoever lives there. Pick a language to model the languages spoken in a region, and translate words literally. Mix them up a little to avoid stupidity.

>don't hate
No promises.

Wait. Old Empire? And no one remembers its name? So why the fuck is it famous? How the fuck do people know about it?

> Do you hand draw your maps, or use a tool like inkarnate?
I've been experimenting with photoshop lately, but I always draft it beforehand on paper
> Are your maps realistic or are they whimsical?
I try to do both
> Do you even use maps?
Essential for world building.
> Are your maps for reference or do you use them in games (Like Urealms?)
I make a less accurate player version and give it to them when they earn it or buy it.

Here's mine. Thoughts?

I can dig the ring shaped lake. are there spooky swamps close to it?

>Bugbears
>Goblins
It's been done before.

Actually yeah, to the south of it. There's also spooky vampire-ran city nearby.

It's the area in which I stuffed most of the horror stuff.

what's in the center island?

discount japan?

r8 pls

Looks like the most standard-ish fantasy world, it's heartwarming. Only the dwarfen mountains are missing.

Working on converting my old inkarnate map to the new format. Still waiting on new terrain and models. Current models just can't compare to the old ones. The 3d ones are neat but too big, and the small ones just dont look very good.

Comparison.

Never been a fan of Inkarnate myself, but in my spare time I got some pretty cool stuff with the old models. I don't see why change them.

>Square grid for overland map

Apart for that, nice

...

That almost looks exactly like the 1st draft of my world right here

Story time

I had some ideas about short little stories set in the Elder Scrolls world but seeing how I hate all fanfiction I thought it would be cooler and more ambitious to create my own fantasy setting. So I drew up this little map here and thought up some races of men and elves who may inhabit it

What the hell happened to that island?

The world looked a little simple to me so I expanded it a bit and started naming things, but I couldn't figure out how to make the shorelines interesting or realistic so ...

The one of the right? What about it?

I used minecraft maps from mineatlas to shape the shorelines with more detail and add lots of little islands and such

Now I am filling in the terrain. Coming up with the lore, names, and interesting places for this whole nap at once would be impossible as fuck so I'll write a story about one place and do all that, then move on to another

Nicely done user, good endish product

What kind of technology, if any, would Sea Elves, Merfolk, Fish People, whatever create if metallurgy can't exist underwater?

What would they use for currency, eat, and wear?

It's like, a rim of land around a sea. It's just a very odd looking land/watermass. I was wondering what the justification was for it.

They may have whalebone armor and spears with tips of sharp coral flakes. Maybe a certain seaweed-like plant grows which they can weave for fiber. Currency could be shells, or more interestingly, small pebbles of a certain kind of volcanic resin found only in the lowest depths of the ocean. They may hunt large prey like whales and sharks by ambush, or could have underwater farms growing strange bioluminescent fruits

Maybe instead they are a culture of scavengers, who sink ships and take what goods they can from the wreck.

>It's like, a rim of land around a sea. It's just a very odd looking land/watermass. I was wondering what the justification was for it.
Oh right. Well I'm still making decisions on that. Not sure if I just want it to an extremely large lake, or if I want it to be an inland sea thats filled by massive underground caverns that go 'under' the island.

Haven't really got to far into worldbuilding that bit of the country yet. Still finishing up 'Luskwood' to the west and the 'Deadmire' to the northwest.

Oh, that's easy. Part of the seam between the two plates dropped out into the core or something. That something would be more properly sciencey.
The fill would be a combination of a few rivers, an aquifer, and sea levels being higher in the distant past.

There's so much noise on that map I actually have difficulty focusing on it.
That's one major change that I like with the newer stuff, so much cleaner. But Inkarnate is pretty basic and locks you into a very limited amount of things that can be done. Good enough for throwing together something that doesn't look awful, quickly. But I rapidly moved on once I needed maps with more useful detail to them.

If you're using it for a fantasy Team Fortress game, it's 10/10.

>The Young Sea
>Not 'The Old Sea', 'The Really Old Sea' and 'The Dead Sea'.

>Oh, that's easy. Part of the seam between the two plates dropped out into the core or something. That something would be more properly sciencey.
>The fill would be a combination of a few rivers, an aquifer, and sea levels being higher in the distant past.

Cheers user, tis a good way to explain it in the future. Will put that down in my notes.

I've elaborated in update form. It's another rival kingdom, their roads are red, that's how you know they're no good.

A big "neutral" city of a regional alliance. Almost a political experiment for the participating countries.

>fragile peace kept by strict law enforcement recruited from neutral mercenaries
>everyone at each others' throats but keeping up the facade of jolly cooperation
>gangs in the streets
>lower class people in mixed neighborhoods while the rich and powerful live in segregated ghettos with gates that get locked at night
>no cultural holidays allowed by the government

inspiring

I'm still deciding the tone. Not that it matters much at the moment, my player are not political at all, they don't even ask who's in charge unless necessity calls for it. Also they're miles away from there.

What makes a good fantasy race?

Speaking of mapmaking, I figure I might as well mention something I've been toying with for a while.

The basic idea is '1dWorld', a worldbuilding tool designed to let you make a map and plot out interesting features with a piece of paper and a handful of polyhedral dice.

I'm writing up guidelines, lookup tables and such to try and make the final version have actual value, but the basic idea is that you select a dicepool based on the type of world you want, as each size of dice corresponds to a certain type of feature, and then roll them.

You can draw a border around the edge of the are the dice cover, if appropriate, then note down the locations and start to extrapolate elements from the relationships between them.

I'm designing it to be scaleable, whether you are building a world map, a continent or a village, with the vague idea that you can even 'zoom in' on a point of interest on one map and have rules appropriate for rolling up details at the more local level and such.

Of course this isn't a replacement for proper worldbuilding, but I thought it was an interesting idea and something that could be a potentially useful tool, whether giving you a vague and semi-randomized continent to work with during early worldbuilding or letting a GM throw together a quick area map if the PCs go to an unexpected location, complete with a few interesting locations they can investigate and explore.

Does it sound like something you might find interesting, or have a use for? Any ideas in how to add value to it without over complicating it, or easy mistakes to avoid?

I still can't figure that out after 5+ years

Does anyone know what this kind of map is called?

Does anyone know where I can i get symbol sets like the ones seen on this map?

I want to use them in maptool for a collaborative map drawing game (Dawn of Worlds), and was hoping to find some nice symbol/texture sets instead of just using colors.

This sounds really awesome.

Are you familiar with the games Microscope or Dawn of Worlds at all?

I think a tool like yours could work well with games like that, or that you might draw some inspiration from them.

1/2

2/2

And that's all I have, sorry.

What are some good natural barriers besides mountains and oceans?

Enormous ravines and crevasses?

deserts, ravines, large rivers, jungles, nuclear fallout zones, swamps, glaciers

hmm not quite what I'm looking for, but it might prove useful. Thanks!

How do you come up with names for places? I'm trying to Homebrew a setting and I keep hitting a wall when I try to come up with names for places.

Think backwards. Think about popular fantasy races and what people like about them. classic movies also full of races and live separate from humans that you could get ideas from.

I'd imagine anything that would be difficult to traverse. Other natural barriers I can think of would be marshlands, maybe an enchanted forest and eats people, or because your magic kingdom is floating in the sky. is fantasy so there could be lots of ways a piece of terrain can be a natural barrier. Just look at Middle Earth, it seems like it's dangerous to travel anywhere.

I'm just talking at /wbg/ but I've been brainstorming a setting, a high fantasy setting. Around 9 races, with 2 or 3 subraces. Taking place on a large continent, around 5 large states and 4 smaller more racially homogenous states that are more tribal. The larger states are more spread out with major trading routes going through the smaller ones, and some by sea. The one major event so far is a tribe thats mostly passive and nomadic, but trade routes avoid the area of badlands or wildlands they inhabit. This changes with the changing of the sovereign, and the new leader is opting for more aggressive, and brutal means to maintain his people. Its more a confederation of tribes than one tribe, but they're mostly united in raiding and pillaging the outlying settlements of the larger states which they're having difficulties putting down or even responding too given the nomadic nature of the people.

Hoping to set up a hard sci-fi setting making allowances for fun here and there, but I run into the problem of hard science fiction stuff getting in the way of the specific feeling I'm aiming for.

>frontier vibe (no contact with earth)
>one star system
>NO FTL
>multiple habitable worlds (luck of the draw/rule of fun)
>two sapient nonhuman races (one neolithic, one pre-nuclear industrial)

One of my players unfortunately has been draining the enjoyment out of worldbuilding this. His points usually break down to:

1. The Singularity will hit before the indicated timeline (about 200 years to colonizing, 500 years until colonies return to space)
2. Original reason for space travel (irreversible climate change) not possible due to weather control technology he assumes will be commonplace within 20 years
3. Quantum Entanglement means instant communication with Earth at all times

How can I keep the original intent of the setting, while acknowledging/disproving my player's complaints?

>How do you come up with names for places? I'm trying to Homebrew a setting and I keep hitting a wall when I try to come up with names for places.

Running into that wall myself. My main inspiration currently is Morrowind, which if I remember right either lifted names from somewhere suitably remote from the US to avoid the familiar or at least took elements and then structured them together. Like the 'Bal' places are hilly, or the 'Mora' places are... something. and all the Telvanni colonies are Tel Something (often the person who own's it but not always) because they made their own where as the Hlaalu and Redoran didn't really do the same so don't have that convention.

But the key thing is they sound like real place names and are fairly memorable/distinctive. Now if I can work out a nice mechanism for that... Probably getting a bunch of syllable noises, distorting them from English where appropriate (so that it's 'Ord' not 'Old' or something), assigning some rules on starting/ending letters and randomly generate stuff until it sounds ok.

Morrowind took a lot of ashlander names and places from ancient assyrian language. Personally I use old languages or look at tiny villages in scandinavia or eastern europe and borrow bits of that

It's more likely that hazards didn't permit easy travel, and great catastrophe split the world, with people congregating in small communities, some of which have become city-states.

embodying a concept fully

Stealing. Reading a lot of history textbooks about obscure subjects and writing down names, then fiddling with them until they fit what I have in mind for them. For one of my factions I mixed ancient Etruscan names with Nahuatl phonetics and endings.

Take given names that are connected to the main concepts of the race, and switch out or add some letters.

All I can say is that his 3rd point is not valid. Transmitting information via quantum entanglement is impossible.

Here's how it works:

>generate a pair of particles from a spin-zero particle
>each particle has a spin that is opposite to the other, so they should add back to zero (from the decayed zero-spin particle)
>either of the particles have not interacted with anything in the universe yet
>thus the spin of one has not been "measured", one could say that its spin is yet to be decided
>separate particles one milky way distance apart
>measure one of the particles
>it is 1/2 spin up
>measure the other particle an instant right after the other one
>(by instant I mean an observer in the middle point would receive the results at almost the same time)
>the other particle will always, without fail, have a 1/2 spin down
>that is, any measurement on one in a pair of entangled particles will inevitable cause the other one to give a complement measurement

Now tell me, using this phenomena, how will you transmit information? Just throw some ideas out there, and I will try to prove that they cannot transmit information instantaneously.

Random words, twisted foreign names, just things that sound cool or descriptive.
Naming is biggest pain in ass.

Leaning towards lower modern tech, like semi-auto battle rifles, bolt action rifles, pistols, etc but no full auto weapons or not plentiful. With some technology replaced by practical magic, like long distance communication is only possible with a line of sight and not refined enough for voices but Morse code via crystals containing mana. There are no internal combustion engines, but something magic that requires a conduit.

I think the motivation for the state causing the trouble should be just a growing resentment of being trade fucked over for precious commodities, their savannah lands don't have many items so they weren't always able to get what they needed. The previous leader was a diplomat, the new one is a war chief.

Morse code, essentially.

Your personal criteria may vary, but here are mine. At least those I can think of now. Many rules can be overruled if there is a good solid reason that is explored in your work. This applies more to stories than to worldbuilding that is to be used for multiple narratives (like p&p campaigns).

>needs of the same general magnitude as the other choices
(most of the time that will equal those human)
This contributes drive to do things and and hindrances.
>sufficiently different from other choices
Difference orients itself on the level of differences between other present choices and the given genre
>race is not made to fit into a specific niche (for example 4 elements) if those niches are not a prominent theme in the world
>race is not significantly more subdivided than others
The effect is more negative when the general level of difference between races is low. (see elf subraces)
>race can interact with and manipulate a plethora of object without the use of magic
Characters simply need stuff to do, and should do so in an animate manner that can invoke empathetically experiencing the sensations.
>race can wear items
Provides culture through mode of dress, satisfies desire to have nice things, changes look to avoid boredom, provides protection in evocative manner.
>does not spend excessive amounts of time idle or doing one thing only
This applies to daily rhythm as well as general lifetime occupation. Monotony is not fun, evocative or particularly awe inspiring, even if you live a million years.
>Is not significantly more powerful than other races on individual scale (doesn't apply if used as force of nature/plot device with sparse presents in daily dealings).
>race is not laser focused on a singular theme in all aspects
>race needs more different cultures, the more numerous it is and the bigger the scope of the world
>visual design neither to plain or to busy (varies strongly with taste)

All of this is in the context of PC race mostly.

To help you refute the three points
1. The Singularity is not guaranteed to happen. Moore's law is not entirely true and already our ability to make more efficient CPUs is slowing down and the singularity's premise is that computers themselves will become smarter to the point where they no longer need human input to solve problems. We do not know if artificial intelligence, as in replication of a true consciousness, is possible. Massive computing power != massive intelligence. It's like having a really big calculator, you can type 80085 on it or calculate Pi to an insane degree, but it's not going to figure out how to make a better computer. With the assumption that true intelligence occurs and the beginnings of a singularity unfold, it may not be at a rapid pace either. What matters a lot is knowledge when making advancements, a lot of small discoveries lead to a bigger, grander discovery. So the wave of post-singularity computers would have to conduct research. They can't just keep building better computers and expect to figure out how to make black hole-powered ships by sitting and pondering.

2. Sure, you can have a machine that fixes all your problems, or not. It really depends on just what this climate change is. If it's something "minor" like the polar caps melting, then mankind could cope with that in 500 years. If you have a runaway greenhouse effect or acidic oceans, that's whole different story and reversing such changes would be on a timescale that's not feasible within a couple of generations. If the climate problem became a problem way too early for mankind to solve, or mankind is going full man and not doing anything to fix it at the last moment, then that's valid cause to emigrate from Earth to "out-source" production of vital goods.

3. See This user knows what he's talking about. Quantum entanglement is more than just spooky action at a distance.

>How do you come up with names for places? I'm trying to Homebrew a setting and I keep hitting a wall when I try to come up with names for places.
I recall someone on one of these reads saying come up with three sylables an stick him together.

Sal Vok Tar
Salvoktar - then come up with some story behind the name

Though most names i generate tend to be orchish sounding

What if my setting is based more on 1930's America?

>The Singularity is not guaranteed to happen
Well that's sort of a relief.

> If it's something "minor" like the polar caps melting, then mankind could cope with that in 500 years. If you have a runaway greenhouse effect or acidic oceans, that's whole different story and reversing such changes would be on a timescale that's not feasible within a couple of generations
My thought was runaway greenhouse effect leads to the human race banding together in order to get generation and sleeper ships off world and colonizing a new home. Not so that everyone can be saved, but so that NOT everyone dies with the earth.

>See This user knows what he's talking about. Quantum entanglement is more than just spooky action at a distance.
That is a neat explanation, although I still would like to know if you can hash out a morse code type of communication using it.

...

Agreeing on these points.
Although on subject of item manipulation, I've been hankering to make a non-biped species, ex, quadruped.
Not major species, but sort of more local things. Not necessarily as player species either.
One earlier note I had had something about intelligent feathered flying serpents, but dunno. Been also thinking of an aquatic species.

One big hurdle would be figuring how they interact with rest of major civilizations ( especially in world with guns and vehicles )

Thanks user. lv u xx

You're welcome. Happy mapping!

...

cont.

>is not a hivemind, mindslave, servitor or similar
Preserving agency to do things on an individual scale, and different personalities between individuals of the race.
>individual is not multiple characters/separate physical entities
Hogs actions, and plays with itself cutting down on interaction. Seems predestined to be a gimmick, often brushed aside.
>not prone to knowingly act against its own interests/priorities or acting totally random/"insane"
>race in itself is not a joke
>character is not completely amorphous
General lack of features if not compensated for by magic, likely subject to the following point
>does not damage normal objects by default when interacting with them (or ruin them to the point that they have to fixed in some way)
>has most senses
maintaining communication and experiencing the world as a basis of action and interaction
>does not copy other races physically via shapechange, or effectively is different things on demand (such entities are still suitable for npcs, but not large populations)
>has no "auto win" conditions that are certain
Such as elves being always victorious in a forest even against foes that are similarly adept in the wild.
>doesn't have nonvisual/nonphysical elements as the only difference
>has mainly physical parts
>Is not an alternate state of another race
Shaky territory regarding vampires, I mainly direct this at skeletons and zombies from a meta perspective (in the perceptions of characters many things can be races that are not). There is also a significant presentation component. Basically there shouldn't be human skeletons running about having skeleton babies, or being spawned by an obelisk or "recruited" from a population whose only purpose is transitioning to them.
>does not have parts that never had a use for them evolutionary
(If tits, must have lips to properly be nursed)
Vestigial parts excluded.
>Is not completely unappealing in every aspect

Oh fuck that's easy, just check out an online obituaries or newspaper database for the time (that'll net you the older generation's naming style, which will be of far more use than a birth registry since fashions in names change continually), something like that, and just grab names and make a list to pull from.

Derp, discard the obituaries given it's place names, but do raid newspapers and see what trivial local news turns out in terms of places.

>has room for natural visual differences between individual characters
>able to show age differences between characters
>able to visually show different character concepts between individuals
>does not depend on sexual intercourse with other races for reproduction
(parasitism doesn't equal sex)
>not metaphysically tied to partner (of any kind) of separate race, or their own for that matter
>not confined to a singular place
Excluding getting driven there for a limited time.
>no excessive concentration of physical detail on a singular bodypart
>experiences all human emotions to some degree (but context may vary)
>not ridiculously rare
Again in context to the theme.
>has positive and negative traits
Obviously.
>should posses comparable quantity of background to other races
>no innate connection to a type of item beyond resource and logistical requirements and culture
(magically bestowed skill with swords for example)
>does not universally posses annoying habits
See Kender.
>has enough volume for organs
>has enough reach to take care of items and own body
>can be slow, but faster than snail pace
>narrative tone matches setting
>visual representation matches setting

Limbs could be multifunctional or they use the tail.

>able to naturally reproduce
>able to display emotions
>not named after another race it shares no common ground with.
>doesn't violate laws of magic you may have set elsewhere
>does occasionally do things for recreation

>My thought was runaway greenhouse effect
That's a good reason to get off the world. Venus is a hell hole of a place on the surface. A runaway greenhouse effect like on Earth would not be much more pleasant. I recommend however to explore the idea of floating cities on Venus, it's scientifically plausible to have such things.

>More code type of communication
It's possible because we have nothing to say with complete certainty that it is impossible. It's just improbable with what we know so far. Morse code works because using electrical signals to deliver sporadic beeps and boops is not impacted by the receiver listening in on said beeps and boops. Applying the same technique to quantum entanglement would work out to something like having two conversations going on at once. The initial sender would hear noise come back from his recipient as soon as the recipient listened in on the sender's signal, assuming both observers are there to measure the entangled pair instantly. Every time someone puts out a dot, a dash comes right back and vice versa.

The trick involved with complex communication would be to somehow eliminate the noise that comes back when your recipient reads your beep. We don't know how such a thing can be possible given our current understanding of quantum mechanics.